LR School Board approves budget
The Little Rock School Board on Thursday unanimously approved a 2012-13 budget that projects $345.0 million in revenue and $338.3 million in expenses for the state’s largest district of more than 25,000 students.
“It’s as lean as we could get it, staffing [schools] to state standards and making sure we are fiscally solvent for the year,” Kelsey Bailey, the district’s chief financial officer, said. “If everything works out right, we should be in the black at the end of the school year.”
The district ended the 2011-12 school year with balances of $39.3 million and is currently projected to end the current year with as much as a $46.0 million surplus, Bailey said.
However, he said the district is likely to use some of
that $46 million to pay for services in the 18 schools in the district that have been identified by the state as “priority” and “focus” schools because of low student achievement on state tests or large achievement gaps between student groups.
The budget includes the approximately 3 percent step increases provided to eligible teachers and other employees earlier this school year for their additional year of work experience.
The budget similarly includes a $2,000 stipend to each teacher who has reached the top of the salary schedule and is not eligible for the yearly step increase.
However, the budget does not as yet include any acrossthe-board pay raise for district employees, Bailey said.
District representatives and representatives of the Little Rock Education Association, which is the union that represents teachers and support service employees, are in the midst of negotiating the terms of the teacher contract for this year.
The budget includes the approximately 3 percent step increases provided to eligible teachers and other employees earlier this school year for their additional year of work experience.
If those negotiations produce a tentative agreement on an employee raise, the School Board would have to vote to approve it and modify the budget.
School Board members were complimentary of the budget process orchestrated by Bailey and Superintendent Morris Holmes and other district staff. That process included at least three budget work sessions over the summer.
Holmes also thanked board member Melanie Fox for her work on the district’s annual budgets. Fox did not run for re-election and attended her last meeting as a board member Thursday.
“I want to recognize the tremendous contribution Mrs. Fox has made,” he said. “Thank you for all the ... probing questions and keeping everybody up late at night,” Holmes said to laughter, adding, “We are better off for it.”
The budget shows a projected decrease in local revenue, largely a reflection of a change in state law regarding the accounting of local funds that produced a one-time windfall for school districts last year.
The district is projected to receive $148.4 million in local revenue, down from $155 million received this past year. The district is anticipating $123 million in state revenue, including a $3 million increase in state funds based on the district’s 70 percent of students who are considered poor based on their qualification for subsidized school meals.
“That’s our biggest boost right there,” Bailey said of the category of state funding. “It’s a plus for us, but it has to be spent on special interventions for students, not for regular classrooms.”